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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Thiru Anbil, is the fourth Divyadesam of Vishnu.( one of the 108 Vishnu desams) The temple was built by the Cholas.

This temple is situated on the banks of river Kaveri at Kollidam ( Coleroon) and has Ranganathar as the presiding deity known here as Thiru Vadivazhagiya Nambi in a reclining posture and Soundaraja Perumal as the Utsavar. The idol, as the name mentions is of exquisite beauty and His consort is Azhagiya valli Nachiyar. Aandal is in the outside prakaram and Garudalwar is facing the sannidhi of the Lord. This temple is believed to be 6000 years old and is considered to be the birth place of the poet saint Valmiki.

There are many inscriptions in this temple describing the history of those times.

How to reach: Well connected. Airport is at Trichy . This temple is at a distance of 20 Kms from the town on the Tiruchi- Kumbakonam route.

You are right, this is an early Chola (9th-10th century) temple. The inscriptions belong to that period and some may have been added during the period of the Great Cholas in the 11th centuries.

The early Cholas renovated many pre-existing temples in Kaveri Valley. These were made of mud, bricks and wood and were therefore perishable. The Cholas transformed them in stone to make them more permanent and also expanded the temple architecture and iconography.

Many of these brrick-wood and mud shrines may go back to the early centuries of the Common Era or to a few hundred years earlier, but their antiquity beyond that is questioned by the scholars. But popular belief attributes these temples to many thousand of years of antiquity and that's how people look at these shrines.

The existing temples all belong to the reigns of Pallavas (6th-9th centuries), Cholas or later. The earlier structures have all disappeared by now or have been rebuilt over.